


felix culpa (written in stone)

by suzzzan



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gorgons (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Kissing, M/M, Sad Ending, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 16:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20696294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzzzan/pseuds/suzzzan
Summary: The reason Crowley wears sunglasses is not because he doesn’t like his eyes.A Medusa AU.





	felix culpa (written in stone)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cathybites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cathybites/gifts).

> whoops. totally not what you asked for. but there's a part about the bed in there.
> 
> also inspired by https://www.instagram.com/p/B16_1XyIOI1/?igshid=98rcqvbljpkj
> 
> (note: no beta, no edit, no proofread. we die like sleep-deprived teenagers. will come back later to beautify—maybe.)

The reason Crowley wears sunglasses is not because he doesn’t like his eyes. He likes the way they look well enough, how they flash back out at him from mirrors and puddles. He likes admiring his own reflection, too. It’s a demonic thing, he supposes. Pride. He likes seeing all his wicked straight edges and impossible angles, his snarly face, smirks, slit-pupiled eyes. And the fire that flares out around them like the first fire the angel brought to the world.

In Eden, Crowley avoided the angel’s eyes. He watched only the angel’s hands as he gave the first fire over to the first two humans, then later, when they spoke for the first time, never further up than the angel’s shoulders, a sliver of a collarbone; he had been really too beautiful to look at straight on, compounded by an ethereal glow. Neither of them knew then that the fire of his sword would engulf everything, spread hatred and violence and chaos across the world. It’s fitting, Crowley thinks sometimes, that his own eyes resemble that fire. He almost wants to feel proud of it, but he somehow can’t bring herself to.

Anyway, Crowley likes his eyes. The problem is—not many other things do.

Because, you see, when a living thing looks Crowley in the eye, it turns to stone.

Legends have been told about Crowley’s eyes. They’ve given him beards (which he’s had before) and monster-esque features (which he certainly does not have, thank you very much) and snakes for his hair (which, fair enough, but only on bad hair days). Most days, Crowley’s a ginger, and he wears sunglasses. He’s usually trying to find an excuse to visit a bookshop owned by a certain angel.

*

Aziraphale laughed the first time he read Greek mythology—so hard, in fact, that Crowley worried the angel would discorporate. They were in the bookshop, and it was the turn of the century, though Crowley forgets which one.

“Well, they have certainly got most everything wrong,” he said. “But more right than the Christians, at least… My dear fellow, did you really lose your head?”

Crowley squinted at him, bright angel through dark frames in the middle of a dark room. “What’re you going on about?”

“Greek mythology. It says here a nice chap named Perseus cut your head off and used it as a shield.”

“The_ image _of my head,” Crowley said. “And if he’d done that today I could’ve sued him for infringing copyright. It’s not true anyways. The story. It’s just a story.”

“Oh… what about the part about your eyes, then. Is that…?”

Crowley nodded.

“Is that why you always wear…?”

“Sunglasses. Yeah.”

“Oh.” Aziraphale regarded the Greek mythology book in an apologetic manner, as if wishing he could find it hilarious again.

“I’ve always wanted to see your eyes,” he says on another day.

“You know what colour they are.”

“Yes, but. Well, I want to _ see _them.”

He pouts. And Crowley wants to give him the world, all its old bookshops and perfectly-warm cups of tea and dusty corners, but he stays still. Still as stone.

“Better not risk it, angel,” he drawls.

*

It’s the day after the End of the World that doesn’t end when Crowley wakes up before an angel still dressed in his day clothes, all heavenly curves spread out before him. Like it’s his for the taking. Like it’s a miracle.

They argued last night for an hour over who should get the bed, never really getting past the petulant, “Well, it’s _ your _bed, Crowley!” in Aziraphale’s case and, “If it’s my bed I should be able to decide who sleeps in it,” in Crowley’s case. Eventually Crowley just grabbed the angel’s stupid tartan collar and dragged him down, rumpled the sheets, nose to nose, and growled, “There. See? It’s big enough for both of us.”

Aziraphale had fallen silent, looked at him with his mouth slightly parted, and Crowley had wanted to kiss him.

He still wants to.

Instead, he rolls to the far edge of the bed. He can’t bring himself to get up yet, to leave behind Aziraphale’s warmth. If he curls in on himself, feels the implicit weight of Aziraphale at his back, he can pretend time is not ticking on, that he can wait for the angel forever and ever.

He’s never seen Aziraphale’s eyes either. He knows, in concept, that they’re blue. He knows because Aziraphale has told him, but behind his shades, they just look grey. Everyone he’s ever looked in the eye with his bare slit pupils has turned to stone. Lying there in the still bed, he wonders how long it will take for all the angels and demons to come after them. He wonders if he can turn all of them, all of Heaven and Hell, to stone if it meant protecting Aziraphale.

The thought fills him with panic, so he slips out of bed and puts his sunglasses on. Behind him, the angel sniffs in his sleep. Crowley slithers into the kitchen, where he miracles himself a mug of coffee, then sets out to make the fluffiest goddamn omelet Aziraphale will ever taste. He only performs a miracle once it’s in the pan to make sure it doesn’t burn. Pretty soon, Aziraphale pads softly into the kitchen, nose oriented in the direction of cooking food.

“Made you breakfast, angel,” Crowley says.

Aziraphale’s eyes turn down to the omelet as if he’s just noticed it. “Oh, Crowley,” he says, and touches Crowley’s hand gently, each fingertip sliding between Crowley’s knuckles. “Thank you.”

*

At the Ritz, Aziraphale looks down at his entree, face drawn, displeased.

“What’s the matter?” Crowley hasn’t gotten anything to eat; he never gets anything, but he’s worried now, now that things are different, maybe Aziraphale’s expectations are, too. Ever since he woke up beside Aziraphale, he’s been a bit paranoid. Little jarring moments remind him of how much he has to lose.

“How… how about that picnic?” Aziraphale says, and_ that _is not what Crowley was expecting.

It takes him a while to form the words. The two of them have been six thousand years in the making. Crowley has wanted this for so long; it’s understandable that his reflexes are sluggish.

“Anything you want, angel.”

*

Over cucumber sandwiches, Aziraphale kisses him.

Crowley has a distinct memory of Falling. It wasn’t the falling part he minded. He remembered he felt like laughing. Everything dropping out of him and rushing in at the same time.

He understands why humans call it falling in love now.

A feather-light hand on his jaw. Sweetness on the tip of his tongue. A garden in full bloom. The wind screaming as he tears through the sky. Aziraphale smells like a mountain peak. Kissing him is like breathing in the clouds. Pure and thin, and Crowley can never get enough at this altitude. His blood is doing something strange in his veins.

When they part, Crowley takes Aziraphale’s hand. It’s heavy and solid, and Crowley thinks to himself,_ it’s real, he’s real, this is real. _

“Are you alright, my dear?” Aziraphale says.

Crowley kisses each of the angel’s fingers slowly, reverently. He’s wanted to do this since 1793.

“Perfect,” he says.

*

“I’ve been thinking of moving out of the city,” he says.

They’re lying in Crowley’s bed, the demon curled in an S around a ball of an angel. They don’t look at each other when they’re talking because there’s a pair of sunglasses on the nightstand, but they hold hands. Crowley drinks in the unmuted colours of Aziraphale, white hair, the tender color of his clothes.

“Oh?” Aziraphale murmurs.

“How does a cottage in the country sound to you?” Crowley says. “Can be anywhere. Doesn’t matter.”

“Mm. South Downs is pretty.”

And so it was.

*

It’s not the falling he minds. No—the hard part is the landing.

*

It happens over tea. Aziraphale mentions it casually, like he’s predicting the weather.

“Who told you that!” Crowley hisses.

“Adam,” Aziraphale says. He’s the picture of unbothered, which unnerves Crowley.

“What doesss_ he _know?”

“He’s the Antichrist. In some aspects, he knows more than we do.”

“But he’s never been Up There! How does he know—”

“It’s the way they’ve always done it, Crowley.”

“No, there was the Fall!”

“After the Fall. They’ve always done it like this.”

“But there has to be another way. A way out of this. We can ask Her—”

“If you pray, Crowley, they will destroy you.”

“They’re not listening. Who’s listening anyway?”

“She’s always listening. She’s listening now. We have to trust her.”

“Trust in what?”

“That this is part of the Ineffable Plan.”

“Fuck the Ineffable Plan. This isn’t ineffable. It’s obvious. It’s plain. It’s_ right. _Do you see us, angel? We’re fucking right.”

Aziraphale says nothing.

“I am not letting them take you and throw you in hellfire. Over my dead fucking body.”

“Corporation,” Aziraphale mumbles.

“Body. Whatever the hell that means.”

“You know, they’re bound to come for you, too, Crowley. Where Heaven treads, Hell is barely a step behind.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get thee behind me foul fiend, and all that.”

“You learn quickly, dear.”

*

In The End, they have such little time together. But it’s worth it, according to Crowley. It’s worth six thousand years of waiting. It’s worth an eternity more.

The angels come for Aziraphale. All the names from old, forgotten texts, they encircle the skies around a cottage in South Downs. Light pours down and over, through the windows, oversaturating Crowley. It hurts.

“I don’t want to go,” Aziraphale whispers to him.

Crowley says nothing, because anything that comes out of his mouth will be livid, cynical, patronizing, and that’s not how he wants Aziraphale to remember him last.

They’ve made tea, but neither of them have touched it. Crowley’s garden gloves lie on the kitchen counter; he’s just come in from weeding, and given a few more minutes, Aziraphale would have crossly reminded him to put the gloves back in the shed where they belong.

Crowley squeezes Aziraphale’s hand.

“Look at me,” Aziraphale says suddenly.

Crowley turns to him. Light floods the space between them. Crowley finds the edges of Aziraphale’s eyes and doesn’t blink, even as the intensity of the exposure increases.

“My dear, look at me. I don’t want to go.”

Then, Crowley understands. “No, not like this.”

But Aziraphale has one hand on his face, and the light is too bright. Any moment now, and the angels will have recalled him. Crowley holds fast to Aziraphale’s other hand. He won’t let him go.

“No,” Crowley says. “No, no, no.”

He’s not sure what he’s saying_ no _to anymore. Aziraphale slides his sunglasses off. Crowley feels his pupils blow. The blue of the angel’s eyes are exquisite. Heavenly.

“No, no, no no no—”

The hand Crowley is holding hardens to stone. Blue eyes turn grey once more.

Thump.

The sound of thousands of angels landing. The sound of Crowley hitting the floor. He has no breath left in him.

*

There’s a new statue in St. James Park.

**Author's Note:**

> is "i don't want to go" copyrighted? i sure hope not.


End file.
